This Is The End, Beautiful Friend

I have a job!!!! Ha ha, never did I think I would utter those sweet, sweet words of glory. I am now a Production Assistant at the very prestigious Bloomsbury Publishing in their Academic Department. If you don't know Bloomsbury, you should - they were the clever people who published Harry Potter. I will however, be working less with Muggles, Witches and Wizards and more with revolutions, wars and philosophies. This is certainly the end of monotonous job searches and cover letters and CVs and bitter bitter rejection. Hooray! It has taken me around 8 months of searching, over 40 jobs applied to, less than half of those replied to, over 100 tiring waitressing shifts, 5 nerve-racking interviews and 4 work experience placements with great companies.

Reactions to my news varied from people streaming tears down their face and jumping up and down on the spot for about five minutes to a simple 'wow that's great....but what about the blog?' Aah the selfish human mind - always looking to get something for itself out of a situation. I am, of course, joking and never fret, this is not the end of our beautiful relationship dear readers (even if some of you were dying to get rid of me!).

I did contemplate ending it all here, signing off in a dramatic statement of typed words flooding the internet with their poignancy. After all, I can't write anything bad about the new job (not that I think I'll need to) for fear of being fired before I've even taken off, and let's face it... who really wants to read about how well someone is doing and how happy they are? People want to to see how miserable and stressed everyone else is so that they don't feel like a total failure themselves. I know I do. It seems however, that there is still a lot to be written about the graduate experience and the terrible job market we are in at the moment.

I don't claim to be a bearer of all knowledge on the subject but I do think that if I can offer up some advice or just a little bit of courage to anyone about to graduate or looking for a job, then this blog still has a semblance of a life. I still feel angry about the way many of my job applications were handled. I still believe that universities don't offer up enough practical advice about entering into a weak labour market. And I still believe that we need to shift the blame from jobless graduates who are labelled lazy or stuck-up and take a deeper look at what is really holding them back.

In September of 2011, I was one of thousands of graduates unable to find a job that used the skills I gained at university. With the 2012 graduates about the join us, it looks set to get even more difficult. Here's my message of hope however - If I can do it so can you. And until that point, we shall both keep fighting the objects that stand in the way. I'm on your side - job or no job.  

  

The Luck of the Draw

I don't know whether I was green with envy or just plain sick but the number of high end designer coats I handled yesterday was insane. It was Dolce & Gabanna after Prada after Burberry, and so much fur; god knows how many dead animals I hung on a coat hanger. What did I expect when I was the coat check girl for a very very expensive jewellery shop on New Bond Street? When I say expensive, I mean some of those jewels would have bought several houses.

While a few of the clientèle were almost ridiculous - botoxed faces that looked like masks and 40 year old bodies pushed into see-through black dresses - the owner of the shop was actually quite normal. Once they had discovered I was more than just a waitress (actually we are all always, more than just waitresses) they told me about how their son had just graduated from Manchester (ha...Nottingham is better!) and was going to be in the same situation as me soon.

Well, this got me thinking... is he actually going to have to face the same obstacles as me? His parents own a spectacular diamond shop and they know countless extremely wealthy and connected people. A reader of this humble little blog recently stressed to me how much luck comes into the equation. They wrote

'Even the work ethic required to complete a law or medical degree is established by a certain amount of luck. Lucky to have nurturing parents, lucky to have wealth (for most), lucky to have the correct set of genes to use a certain side of the brain, lucky to be taught from an early age how to manage time. With 7 billion people on earth, there's more pressure than ever to be perfect' 


Well it seems that my luck has dried up, or at least it's in drought. I was lucky enough to have parents who gave me decent enough genes to do well at my education, pushed me to take on lots of extra curricular activities and who taught me how to communicate well. Certainly there are people born into far unluckier circumstances than myself.

I'm not the kind of person however, who wishes to leave it all up to luck. While several factors are playing in my favour in the 'rat race' I also believe that most of my good fortune has come about through sheer hard work. The luckiest person in the world wouldn't get the job of their dreams without at least trying.

Well here's a test for you life... I recently had a very exciting interview at Bloomsbury publishing for my ideal role in their academic division. It went really well - the interviewer seemed to like me, I answered the questions naturally and comprehensively. I left feeling good about it but I was only the second interviewee and they had several other candidates to see after me. I'll know if I got the job by tomorrow.  Come on luck, open the flood barriers again and pour your glorious water all over me because this drought is starting to slowly suck the life out of me.

Selling My Soul

Hold the press! The kindly people from the JobCentre have revoked their decision to offer me absolutely no money at all while I search diligently for a job and have instead decided to award me the incomprehensible sum of 88p per week.

While it is awfully kind of them to reconsider my economic position in society all the way from their offices in Scotland, this now means that I have to provide proof of my job searching activities and go to the JobCentre every other week to sign on in order to claim my 88p. I'm going to say it again out of sheer disbelief.... 88p.

Please, please keep your money and preferably shove it somewhere unmentionable. Or at least give it to a more useful, less time-wasting cause. This is absolute bureaucracy gone mad and I refuse to participate in it. All it means is that I am now the government's female dog and must adhere to their ridiculous laws in order to get my bone... and a measly old bone it is too.

I have just got back from Berlin, a city that was not so long ago divided by a wall and whose inhabitants (at least in the East) were often forced into conspiring with the secret police in order to get their daily bread. Have I essentially just sold my right to live a free and private life for the price of a loaf of bread? I don't want to get carried away with comparisons here but I'm a historian (or so they told me at university) and so I like to make historical connections between our present day and past occurrences. It was Pasha in Doctor Zhivago who claimed "the private life is dead in Russia". Perhaps the private life here is dying? How many national databases share our private information every day? How many people sell their privacy for 88p?

While I don't have to be a part of this, I refuse to be. Ironic really, considering the fact that I am blogging my life to the world, but at least that is of my own choosing. And plus, I like to think it is my own minute political stand. Better ring the JobCentre now and tell them I choose not to sell my soul for 88p and I really haven't found them the least bit helpful. After all, I am the one who has just secured myself work experience at Time Out Magazine. I can't wait to get some more experience. It may be unpaid but even they are offering me travel expenses and £2 for my lunch each day... I might even be able to afford some sandwich fillings for my bread now.

No Job, No Benefits...No Nothin'

I'm not really sure whether this is positive or negative factor on my life as a whole but I have been refused Job Seeker's Allowance. After putting myself through two rather un-fun trips to sign on at my local Job Centre Plus and diligently noting down the ways in which I had been searching for jobs to prove that I should be allowed the benefit, it has all come to, well, nothing. 

I have to admit it did seem stupid writing down all the jobs I had applied for and going along to the centre like a naughty child who now has to keep a record of all their homework. The lady I showed it to didn't even look at it properly and decided to pick out the one job that I was not proud of applying for.... sales assistant at Victoria's Secret. (I couldn't resist the call of discounted undies). I hadn't even received the letter telling me whether or not they were going to give me the Allowance. Well, they're not, the stingy buggers, because apparently I earn wayyy too much. Now I do see where they are coming from. My waitressing jobs can sometimes earn me around £52 a week, the amount the government claims we need to live, but they don't always. In the off months I can get far less than that. Should I just quit my job and re-claim? That's hardly an honest way to live and plus I know that I would just get bored bored bored without some kind of work distraction. If the government aren't going to help me, I shall just have to keep trying to help myself. And by this I do not mean pickpocketing the wealthy iPad users on the tube.

I did not get the internship I wanted. I got a nice reply from the internship agency saying that the interviewer enjoyed meeting me and said that I would be a great addition to anyone's team, however, they needed someone to work 5 days a week. Huh? I do not recall mentioning I couldn't work full time? What followed was a series of emails to clear up the mistake. The astute interviewer had got me 'confused' with another candidate. Fantastic. So when I thought we were getting on really well and all having a laugh together, actually it turns out he was probably just flirting with his co-worker and getting distracted from the real task at hand. The more I interview, the more enraged I feel  at the way I am treated. Needless to say, I no longer want to work for them anyway. So ha. 

Before I revert completely to my childish self, I will offer some words of hope. I have had work with a wonderful new start-up website over the last few days (earning real money... insane, I know) and made some great contacts in the travel journalism industry. I'm also off to do some travel of my own in Berlin over the next few days so I'll say ta-ra for now, or auf wiedersehen as they say over there, and with any luck I'll return with a head full of inspiration and a belly full of beer and sausages. Here's hoping.   

  

A Delightful Trip to the Local Jobcentre Plus

It seems that life is determined to take me full circle. Having started this blog with a post about the Jobseeker's Allowance, I can now confirm that I have taken the almighty step into my local 'sign on a die a bit' centre. This decision was not taken lightly - after looking for work for around eight months I finally decided that I probably deserved to be earning some kind of governmental benefit purely out of pity. So there we are, I have officially signed on. Well, that is if my application goes through. Because I have been doing part time work I'm not sure if it will - but the rules say that you can claim if you work less than 16 hours a week and are searching for full time work, which I am I am I am!

The centre itself was somewhat like a book. Do NOT judge it by it's cover. I have to say I was a bit nervous about the whole deal. Strangely, what popped into my head first was what to wear. How do I appear not so bedraggled that I am mistaken for one of the drunks who regularly collects their dole, yet not so smart that I seem well-off and get robbed on my way out? Decisions. In the end I went for a jeans and pumps option which seemed to do nicely as I'm still very much alive and the security guard didn't throw me out.

Once I'd passed an angry looking drunk man smoking a strangely pungent roll-up on my way in I suddenly realised that I wasn't actually in a hell hole. Quite the opposite in fact. The room looked new and clean and it was quiet yet weirdly, very weirdly, friendly. I signed in and plonked myself down on a comfy sofa, feeling rather better than I had ten minutes ago. The butterflies flew off and I waited calmly to be seen.

While sitting and waiting for twenty minutes however, the cracks began to appear. Firstly, the over-abundance of security guards became a bit of an alarm bell. In a room about twenty by eight  metres big, there were at least ten guards. They were all very friendly looking but I couldn't help wondering why quite so many of them were needed. Then, as I was ushered into a small office room to meet my advisor I was faced by a one inch thick pane of what I can only presume was bullet-proof glass. As I passed my documents through the tiny slit in the window and signed a million forms I imagined how many angry jobseekers there were. I felt like I was in a prison at visiting hours. Angry as I was, I wasn't about to shoot 'em up.

Finally, when asked what kind of jobs I was looking for I have to admit I felt darned stupid answering 'editorial assistant roles in journalism or publishing'. Apparently, that job spec isn't even on the national Jobseekers Plus computer system. Timidly I added, 'or PA/secretarial roles' to downplay the 'I'm a posh twat with a degree' side of my application. After being handed a flyer about a local job fair where I was told I could apply for roles at Greg's the bakery, I left the centre as hurriedly as possible with some sense of my pride intact. Not that I mind working in a shop, I just applied to a job in the new Westfield, only, I could have found out that gem of a work opportunity on my own thanks.

So I haven't moved far from square one... it's all snakes and ladders really and I was never much good at that game. I am waiting for hear back from an interview I had with a small publishing company for an internship. It would be amazing, nay spectacularly amazing if I got the job. I'll keep you posted.

Snobs We Are Not!

It's official says the Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Daily Mail and even the Metro... graduates these days are NOT stuck-up job/education snobs who are unwilling to take on a job they believe is beneath them. According to BBC Education reporter Judith Burns, "recent graduates are more likely to be working in lower-skilled jobs than they were 10 years ago, new figures suggest." 


So no more of this grad hating please. Stop moaning that we are too proud to work in Tesco or the Pound Shop after having spent £3,500 a year (now more like £9,000 may I remind you) on a full time degree because, actually, many of us are doing just that. Well, more of us than were doing so 10 years ago anyway. We're waiters, promotions staff, shelf-stackers and call centre workers. 


So next time you try blaming us for our unemployment, think twice.


One stand-out statistic shows that the most worthwhile degrees to take are definitely practical. Medicine and dentistry come out on top in terms of wage per hour, closely followed by mathematical sciences, architecture and engineering. And where does History stand? Second from last, beating only the Arts. Typical! Why didn't someone tell me this before I spent over £12,000? In all honesty though I could never have been a doctor. I can't even talk about needles, let alone administer them - I fainted like the pansy I am when  had my BCG for goodness sake. Dentistry doesn't exactly appeal to me either come to think of it. Though I can't imagine staring into random strangers open mouth chasms is that appealing to anyone. 


Maybe I should have chosen a healthy medium and studied law. Law graduates seem to be doing OK. I reckon I could settle a few over-the-fence disputes for £16.95 an hour. Actually just saying those words made me yawn. Or is it the fact that it is 23:30 and I should be asleep? No, pretty sure it's the law thing. 


Still, those of us who are employed seem to be doing better than non graduates who are earning far less than those with a degree. According to the recent research, the average non-graduate hourly wage is £8.92 - which is still more than I, and most waiting staff, earn per hour - but far less than the average graduate wage of £15.18 per hour. Considering the fact that a third of graduates are in 'low skilled' jobs and graduate unemployment is at roughly 25%, it is clear that the lucky ones employed in the above mentioned career areas are the ones earning all the money. Not that studying medicine for 7 years and getting a job is lucky - no one will deny the work that goes into that. 


It's a shame I wasn't cut out for the mathematical sciences or for blood and guts surgery. I'm a word-smith. My brain functions in other ways. Do I deserve to be punished for this? Ha, probably just for the pure arrogance of that sentence. Seriously though, stop with the grad-bashing culture of blame and don't forget that we are all in this together. And to all you unemployed grads out there... keep a little bit of pride. No matter what they say.  


  

Am I Just A Number?

I really don't want to be done for libel but I'm about ready to turn an unfamiliar shade of puce and start yelling awful things on the streets of London about a particular company we shan't name here. It seems to me that not only do jobseekers have to contend with a worsening job market, fewer jobs, redundancies, never-ending applications and inevitable rejections, alongside all of this, we are treated in an almost inhumane way.

HR, headhunters - we are all just numbers to them.

I recently did an interview for the role of Publishing Assistant with a certain magazine. It went surprisingly well considering it was the first interview I've ever had for a job that I actually really want. I wasn't a shaking ball of nerves, I actually remembered everything I had read about the company on their website and, after I left, the recruitment company rang me to say that the interviewers really liked the way I had answered the questions and that I had a second interview.

The next week was spent diligently practising my practical skills. I printed off proofreading tests and even watched every single video on YouTube narrated by a geeky American middle-aged man about how to use Adobe InDesign. Needless to say this all took hours and I turned down shifts at work in order to be at my best as well as turning down another work experience placement at the Daily Mail.

It's Thursday evening, the night before my interview and I'm in Tesco buying aubergines or something, when my phone rings. In two minutes my soul was shattered. The guy from the recruitment agency tells me that the company decided to go with someone else.... before even giving me my second interview. Cue me wandering forlornly through Tescos with my aubergines and wondering whether I should just take a job there instead.

I just don't understand. Why tell me this the night before my interview? In my eyes, I am not only down one job interview, I am also down at least £40 worth of work and a weeks worth of experience. If they thought someone was better than me, why did they ask me to do a second interview? I thought they were really great people when I met them but now I'm glad that I'm not working there if they treat people like this. I got from over 300 applicants down to the last 5 and I was still just a number to them.

In my eyes, all job applications should receive a letter/email of  recognition, followed by one saying whether or not you have made it to the next stage. The number of applications I've spent hours on to receive absolutely zilch back from is countless. Even an automated email would be something. So far I feel like the people in charge of actually giving us jobs are cold-hearted machines. I don't know whether it's their fault or that of the economy/job market but it's still not acceptable.

Perhaps I should go into HR myself and revolutionise the way job applications are processed. None of this computerised CV sorting. We need real jobs for real people. 

Rose Tinted Spectacles?

My friends and I have decided that buses, men and job interviews are all alike: None turn up for ages and then they all come along at once. 

After applying for so many jobs I lost count, I now have two very useful agencies working to find me a job, have had two interviews and have been called back for a second interview by one company. I am yet to figure out how, after several months (seven to be precise) I have suddenly got some responses to my applications but it has happened. Perhaps the world really is 'all connected' and buses, men and interviews disappear into the same deep black hole, only to resurface when they believe they have truly tested your patience to the max? Or perhaps I just got far better at writing cover letters, British traffic is awful and there is a time of year when a woman appears far more attractive? Either way, it does seem that things might be on the up. 

I'm not going to hedge my bets just yet; count the chickens and all that, but I do feel that even if I don't get any of the jobs I have been interviewing for, I am getting closer. When I say jobs, one of said jobs is actually a three month internship - expenses only and no 100% promise of a job at the end of the placement. I guess I'm just lucky enough to live at home because God knows how any young person without substantial savings/a timely inheritance could afford to do such a job. 

Still... the world is definitely a brighter shade of pink right now and I'm somewhat on my way to becoming a self-sufficient 22-year old. It's about bloody time really isn't it? With any luck you won't find my next post to be a reversal of this new breed of optimism I'm cultivating within. It would probably be best for us all. 

The Freelance Entrepreneur

With graduate employment as stinkingly low as it is, it's high time we took earning money into our own hands. While my expert waitressing skills get me enough money to ensure my impending death is not quite so impending, my income needs a little bit of a boost if I wish to save a single penny. Hence, I am going to test the freezing waters of entrepreneurship and freelance journalism.

While part of me really just wants to sell Vietnamese Banh Mi (the best steak sandwich in the world) from a food stall on Brick Lane, I have realised that this is actually more complicated and expensive than ever anticipated. Plus, I'm not Vietnamese, I don't have public liability insurance and while the sandwiches are heavenly, I'm not sure I could ever look one in the face again after making and serving over 500 of them every month. Still, I know what I'm having for lunch today.

I did try the E-Bay route for a while. Selling my old clothing however, got a tad depressing, especially when I realised that no one really wanted a fluorescent pink top or my old bra. Not surprisingly really, but I had hoped that there might be people out there more desperate than me.

Back to the serious stuff, I am going to test my writing skills on the local papers and magazines and see if they want to publish my works of brilliance. This egotistical speak is not entirely serious, don't worry, it's just me trying to stay absolutely positive. Pure banter. So, when I'm not working as a deluxe waitress, I will be coming up with articles to send to local papers or supplements. I'll fill you in pretty soon on whether or not this is going well as soon as I've banged out a few of my letters to editors. Unfortunately I seem to work best at night and seeing as how I have to be up for work nice and early for an eleven hour shift it looks like I won't be getting a wink of sleep tonight, let alone forty.

Spam Attack!

So I just found out that I've been fooling myself all along. The hundreds of views which I was so proud to be racking up on my page count are mostly something evil called referer spam. OOOOH I hate spam - whether it's electronic, paper or meat based, it is the absolute bane of my life. How dare these Russian spam artists take over my blog stats and make poor unknowing people click on their links! Of course, I clicked on them - pride got the best of me and I wanted desperately to know who it was looking at my posts. Well, turns out it's no one. And their sites are rubbish. Humph.

99% of the mail I receive is generally tut. Emails getting me to sign up to yet more job sites where I can advertise myself and my manifold skills by posting my CV on line... and get no responses whatsoever. Letters from the NHS wishing me Happy New Year and offering me a free Chlamydia test. Yay. It's just what I always wanted! Then there's the the ones from every single voucher company available on this planet offering me half price spa days and manicures. While I could definitely do with one of those right now - my nails are worn down from a combination of washing up since the dishwasher broke and general anxiety - I can't actually afford their lovely and slightly pointless offers. There was one exciting thing I got in the post however; a Graze box. Four little compartments of healthy, tasty, nutritious treats, intended to ward off the 4 o'clock snack attack. And...it was FREE! So at least I'm sticking to my New Year's Resolutions. Save money and snack healthily. In fact I'm nibbling upon some chilli and lime pistachios right this very instant. Yum.

Oh yeah, guess what? I got promoted again. In that job that I thought I'd never go back to. A 50p per hour pay rise, more seniority and the task of reporting on staff members who dare to turn up with a hair bobble coloured other than black or with beard stubble. It seems that I am perhaps destined to become a worker in the catering and events industry after all. Or is it the bitching industry? I'll have to work that one out. Either way, they are the only ones who seem to want to hire me right now. And the only people who send me emails which aren't spam - although how eager I am to receive said emails is another matter.

Sentencing Tired Career Advice to Death

Call me a moaning Myrtle, or however the saying goes but there comes a point where career advice just becomes patronising. Now I'm not an ungrateful person - my friends will gladly tell you how much I can love and appreciate almost any silly little thing on this planet - I'm just not stupid either.

Let's start with the classic. "You just have to keep applying to everything until something comes up." Really? Because I thought that maybe if I stopped applying to things, then they would definitely give me a job. You mean there isn't a job God who looks down from his shiny office in the sky and reads our CVs diligently, handing out dream jobs delivered by angels? Bummer, bang goes my religion. On the other hand, maybe I should try a new method - maybe if I don't apply for jobs I will definitely get one. Hah, that's the other one that gets me - "you just need to be patient, something will come up". Unfortunately, I don't think it quite works like that in reality. If it did, this blog would have blown up and I'd be a top columnist right now. So I think I'm just going to stick with what I know and have been doing for the last few months... endless job applications. I'm still agnostic about the whole CV God thing though.

My favourite piece of advice I have received so far (and about a million times) is "it's all about the connections"...well duh! I don't really say duh, but in this case it's necessary. I am a woman torn. I both love and loathe connections. On the one hand I love meeting new and interesting people and the idea that someone might give you a job or some experience because they take a liking to your personality and they think you can do the job well. On the other hand, the democratic and liberal side of me is screaming out against nepotism and favouritism and calling for equal opportunities for everyone, whether they know people or not. Of course we should use our connections in a professional sense but in a way I know I value the jobs that I got totally on my own by going through every level of the application process even more. I guess that I am in no position to be getting up on my moral high horse in my situation, despite the fact he is rather a comfortable and ethical horse.

At the end of the day, it would be nice to be given a teensy weensy little interview. Just so I can show them how good I would be at the job. My motto, and that of my other unemployed friends has become "we're so hireable!". It's so true. Plus it shows how much we have grown up since the age of fourteen when it was more like "we're so fancyable!" - priorities girls. If I get one more piece of overly-spouted, obvious career advice, I may just have to stamp on it very hard with my new winter boots.

p.s. original career advice always welcome and not stamped upon in a malicious fashion.

Resolutions

It's the start of  new year. I'd like to say it's time for a new me...but let's keep things simple for now. After an amazing festive season of way too much bubbly (or just way too many general alcoholic units) consumed, far too much rich and delicious food and a whole lot of sitting in front of the television generally not moving for several hours at a time, it is well and truly time for a fresh start. So, some new year's resolutions, which I fully intend to stick to... for at least a month anyway.

1. Swap unhealthy snacks for healthy ones.
A great idea in theory. Carrot sticks and humous instead of crisps and nuts and seeds instead of sweets and chocolate. The only problem is of course, that my whole house is FULL to the brim with an over abundance of unhealthy, extremely tempting snacks teasing me at every turn. There's chocolate in the fridge, on my desk, in the front room and even in the hallway, just sitting there mocking my futile attempt at a resolution. Then, you start to make excuses., Well maybe if I just have one unhealthy snack a day? Before long it's all over and your gorging yourself endlessly, surrounded by a blanket of  pretty coloured foil wrappers. Must...stay...strong.

2. Exercise at least twice a week.
So I'm definitely too poor to join a gym and I hate running in public. The next best option is back to the exercise DVD regime whereby a fit and healthy Davina McCall tells me I'm doing really well all the time and generally gives me self-confidence boosting tips. The draw back with this option is that the DVD player is in the front room which also has a very comfortable sofa in it. Similarly there's no allotted time for said exercise and so I could end up just not doing it at all. But that's not the way I intend to carry on. I will be perfectly toned and fit by the summer I promise myself.

3. Save money.
I have the image of a traveller's dream in my mind for this summer. It involves starting in St Petersburg,  catching the Transiberian from Moscow via Mongolia, to Beiijing and then potentially the ferry to Japan. I do realise that this seems slightly ridiculous right now when I am jobless and penniless but my plan will prevail and  all it will take it finding a job and saving, saving, saving. Plus, I won't be spending any money on unhealthy snacks any more will I? I'm not even sure that I mind too much what the job is really. Of course, if I land my dream job right here, right now, the trip will have to wait but I have come to realise that the likelihood of that happening is close to zero. At least this gives me something to look forward to.

2012 is going to be a good year. With my health (hopefully), my wealth (very hopefully) and my holiday (extremely hopefully) all contributing to a very happy new year.

Reunion (Or Forgetting You Ever Left University)

My weekend pretending I was once again a student of Nottingham University was, to be oxymoronic, painfully fun. I arrived healthy, fit and ready for two days of student messiness. ("It's gonna be Lionel", as the guys say....took me rather a while to get this pun. What can I say, I just don't know enough about football). I left, however, with no voice, a broken shoe and a foot that was described rather too vividly as resembling a gammon joint. Student nightclub Ocean proved to be a little too much for this out-of-practice grad me thinks. Despite the fact I have black pumps without a sole on the right foot, am on antibiotics and sound rather like Leonard Cohen on an extra raspy day, I can say that it was actually, a spectacular weekend.
Living in the real world has been proving a bit too much for me and few of my graduated mates. The endless job applications, down hearteningly low wages and general lack of brain stimulation have left us pining for the student lifestyle once again.

Of course, when I was close to graduating I thought I had the whole world ahead of me. I couldn't wait to be earning and contributing, working and feeling grown up. The transition from uni lifestyle to real world routine can be difficult, especially if you don't feel much worth in your situation. Universities, especially personal tutors, need to prepare students more for this unexpected change. There are no cheap sports clubs or competitions any more and no regular social events with all your peers - it's very difficult to get everyone together at the same time and place these days. Alongside getting us prepared for finals, tutors need to be pushing us to start applying for jobs, work experience, grad schemes, anything that will help set us up for the after-life. I know these are the kind of things I'll be telling all my younger relatives to do.

Life seemed so much simpler when we could live in our pyjamas and eat pizza in the library at 2am. Nevertheless, the show that is our lives must, and will, go on. Despite reminding me of what I am missing, this weekend also showed me that we are all, mostly, in the same position and no matter what is happening in life, we will always have an amazing group of friends to share our woes with over rum and orange juice -or whatever other strange student drink we choose. Cheers!

Lets All Go Abroad

As the UK job market still struggles to find enough jobs for the young, many recent graduates are looking abroad for work. While my Twitter page (https://twitter.com/#!/GutsyGrad) jokingly suggested that we should all move to Monaco, who, according to Wikipedia anyway, have a 0% rate of unemployment, I suddenly realised that maybe it wasn't such a joke of an idea. OK, so Monaco only has a population of around 34, 000 people, making it the second smallest country in the world but brush up on my French and maybe they'll accept me.

Jokes aside, China is supposed to be big on taking well educated English grads, and the US seems to have far more grad schemes than over here. Hopefully Clegg's new £1 billion fund to tackle youth employment will help - although it means registering as unemployed for three months before they will help you out. What I want to know is...do I count as unemployed? I am waitressing, but it's not the kind of wage anyone can actually live off independently... unless they eat and drink nothing but bread and water and stay at a homeless shelter anyway.

Seems like it might be easier to look abroad after all, and gazing outside my window at the grey London sky and howling wind, I could do with a change of scenery. A quick browse on www.indeed.com, a jobs website, showed up at least ten editorial assistant jobs available in New York and over ten in Boston. Many of them for big publishing companies such as Random House and Penguin Books, or great lifestyle magazines.  I know America and countless other countries are having economic and employment problems too - but there seem to be quite a lot more jobs going out there.

For now I shall have to wait for replies to the jobs I've applied for here in the last few days. Fingers crossed they will at least get back to me for interviews. Otherwise, the possibility of me either going the homeless-shelter-bread-and-water route or moving to a whole new continent seem like my only options.

Jobs, Jobs and No Jobs

Sympathetic Liberal: 1.2 million 16-24 years old out of work. Blame the government.
Unsympathetic Employed Person: No blame the grads...there are plenty of job opportunities. They need to stop being so proud and take anything they can get.
Angry School Leaver: Hold on. Don't take our jobs. Grads should leave the unskilled work for us, we need it more.

...So the debate goes at the moment. Infuriatingly, this is the vicious cycle we are stuck in. I think it's a case of 'can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em' syndrome, whereby graduates are being blamed for their own woe as well as the woe of countless others. A Metro reader (yes, I know, a highly valuable source) wrote in the other day with another good point. Did we not take a degree in order to make sure we didn't get stuck in a dead end, low-skilled job? I know for a fact that that is what the majority of my £16, 000 loan was begrudgingly handed over in aid of. That and a library card. So leave us poor overly qualified young people alone! We are simply trying to get what were promised all along; a skilled job, decent wage and maybe one day an affordable one bedroom flat.

I'm sure there are some lazy buggers out there, people who think that joining up to the Guardian Jobs Website from bed  is enough effort for one day, but I most certainly am not one of them. I had a meeting with a recruitment firm today for the position of PA/publishing assistant. When I saw the advert my heart leapt and I thought I had found my calling... It was an entry level graduate role with a professional publishing company. But when I got there, the lady told me that I was basically overqualified for it and it was more of an administrative job than an editorial one. So here's me attempting to apply for a low level job in publishing, and I'm being told I might be too good for it and get bored! In fairness she has a point, but really, there are just no other jobs available at the moment.

So it's back to the drawing board. I've applied for another job today which is actually advertised as editorial assistant, which I'm sure they will say that I am under-qualified for. There's just no winning. For the rest of this week I'll be back in my black and white uniform with my waiters friend, scraping up people's food again. Random House already seems so far away. Sigh. If there's a time in life when I really feel like I need a handout, it's now.

Rule Number One

The first rule of being an unemployed graduate? Do NOT under any circumstances, especially when you're feeling like a hopeless basket case, start facebook stalking your university friends. While some of them may well be in the same position as you, many more of them will be wildly exclaiming their joyous first day at a top London PR company or bank, unaware of the devastating effect they are having on your already deflated sense of self worth. Firstly, yes I do realise this is a contradiction on my last post which exclaimed the fact that we are not alone, and secondly I also realise that I am beginning to sound rather jealous. I cannot deny either fact and so I shall just have to rebuild my self esteem with a deep crust cheese pizza (which never cooks properly in the middle but always, without fail, burns on the outside).

Enough of the self deprecation, it's always onwards and upwards. As they say, it can only get better, and besides, I have decided that if it gets any worse I might resort to sending in an application to Britain's Got Talent to showcase my now spectacular waitressing skills.

Parallel Universes

It appears that my graduate limbo has split into two parallel universes, both of which I simultaneously inhabit and neither of which are alike in any way. Universe number one consists of me generally running round with a heavy tray (which has already increased the size of my biceps), polishing plates and glasses in a steamy kitchen and smiling graciously at very very drunk middle-aged men who insist on breathing their Veuve-Cliquot champagne breath right up my nose. While this job is earning me a wage, it is so minimal it might as well be a minus wage. For my shift at Claridges (one day I will walk through the FRONT door!) I had to buy a pencil skirt, tie, shirt and heeled shoes. They may well have been from Matalan but they also accumulated to £30, almost the exact amount I earned for the five hour shift.

Even the people hiring me think that I'm mental to do this job. Sergei, the suave Russian head of the waiting staff at Claridges was both overly pleased and astounded to have met a real English person working there, at one of the most English establishments in London! Now, I had a great time meeting all my fellow waiters and waitresses, but it did leave me wondering why on earth I was the only English person working there? Why are   foreigners having to take these low-paid jobs in hotels and what are all the other English people of my age and situation doing instead?

Perhaps they are simply settling for one universe? My parallel existence number two is very different.Today I completed my first day at the Daily Mail with the Weekend Magazine. The description my supervisor gave me was that basically I would be 'doing all the shopping for the magazine'... yipee! What girl wouldn't want to shop for a job? And, I got to walk in through the front door, well, the visitors section of the front door but let's not dwell on that. My day consisted of reading through every big British newspaper available (by the way there's a lot of them) in order to try and suss out what exactly was hot and what exactly was not for the barometer column and then internet shopping for quirky corkscrews. I never dreamt that a corkscrew would take up an entire evening of my life but it did, and the result was surprisingly satisfying. Plus I got shown round the store room where they keep all the products they have been sent from PR companies:- Hotel Chocolat choccies, Laura Ashley Wallpaper, expensive wines and so much more.

I think if I had to sum up my two parallel universes it would be by their respective cupboards. A treasure trove of freebies in comparison to a kitchen clearing room which is full of cold food, broken glass and tiredness.

To Spin or Not to Spin?

On the tube home today I picked up a handy copy of the Sunday Times Magazine and Mr Robert Roland Smith, the 'To be or Not to Be' columnist (p.13, 02/10/11) was discussing the moral issues behind 'spinning' your CV to entice potential employers. Now, I believe that to spin, is just a cop out way of saying to tell porkies. When the MPs have their spin doctors whittle up some elaborate piece about the Iraq war, we all know that they are essentially, no matter how they put it, lying.

While Mr Smith may claim that it is "presenting the facts in such a way that they become more coherent than, in reality they really are", stating that you are a social and community interested person when you really mean that you frequent the pub on a regular basis is just preposterous.

For all us people who have actually worked hard to gain the type of experience and qualities an employer is looking for, the fact that someone who is essentially just a good liar could get the job instead of us is painful. Of course we should sell ourselves in our CVs. A job as a waitress for instance should never be put down to just a list of duties such as plate waiting, clearing and polishing. I learned fantastic organisational skills from the hectic kitchen (with a chef worse than Gordon Ramsey on a bad day) and fabulous people skills from the classy, picky and often drunk customers.

My point is, you don't need to lie on your CV, you just need to dig deep and pick out extraordinary things you might have learned from an ordinary job.

On the subject of CVs, I have come across just about every piece of advice out there now. With the job pool so full to the brim, it seems that we are expected to go to insane levels to promote ourselves, without even meeting the boss. www.thebiggeridea.com suggests a colourful visionary delight of a graph depicting your relevant experience to get you noticed. They then go further to suggest sending tape recordings of your hiring pleas and amazing qualities directly to your chosen employer. It seems these days that we have to practically date the boss before we can even meet them. Whatever happened to the good old days where employers would search for and really want us?

My friend is a perfect example of this very situation. In order to try and get a job - unpaid of course - where he can gain relevant experience in the filming industry (after having done a degree in the subject!) he has had to construct witty letters containing filmic anecdotes and references to his employer, alongside calling him several times a week. How come intelligent, hard-working and experienced young people have to basically stalk a boss to even get noticed for an unpaid job? My friend would have been arrested for behaviour like that a decade ago...not given the job!